


Tactical Planning

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [129]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Family, Gen, Humor, Star Wars AU - Soft Wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:46:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28138647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: (Sequel to Common Censor)Rex objects to Luke's vocabulary.  Kix can only watch the madness.
Relationships: CT-6116 | Kix & CT-7567 | Rex
Series: Soft Wars [129]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 47
Kudos: 317





	Tactical Planning

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Common Censor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28032321) by [Project0506](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506). 



It must have been, from what Kix’s well-trained eye can divine, an extremely professional thrashing.

Contusions are painted on nicely painful, but not landed directly on especially delicate joints. The left eye socket is blooming to a shining purple without any broken blood vessels in the eye itself, and not even a fracture to the bone underneath. There’s a stunningly neat patella dislocation already politely reset, and with barely a strain on the meniscus.

Fox even iced it for him before packing him off back home. Kix is impressed.

_Rex_ is impressed, for all he’s trying valiantly to work himself up into a strop. He’s only so far managed a sulk though, and his thoughts of retaliation are, to Kix’s _very_ well-trained eye, having trouble stealing attention away from his in-depth analysis of that fight he very soundly lost.

Exquisitely so. Fox must have had medical training: most troopers are fool enough to think that slamming themselves back-first against a solid surface is how one sets a dislocated shoulder. Between Fox’s attending and the bacta-laced compression wrap he applied, the joint barely had the chance to swell. Very well done.

“We’ll call it something like ‘promoting natural beauty’ or ‘Conserve Coronet’,” Kix’s unimpressed riduur snarls. _He_ it seems had no problem working himself strop-ward. Kix would have left him at home if he’d for a moment thought it would stick. Jesse paces like a caged gundark because to this day one of the few crimes he’ll never excuse is disrespecting Rex. “Wildflower protection zones, _something_. Fill the whole karking city with hacweed, every square that isn’t already concrete.”

Kix won’t bother to tell him that there are very simple, extremely effective treatments for pollen allergies and if Fox’s are as bad as they seem, then every Guard medic from Thire on down are well acquainted with them. Let him have this.

“We’re not going to fill Coronet City with hacweed,” Rex sighs.

“Of course we won’t,” Jesse retorts in _that_ voice: the one that means that Torrent won’t get _caught_ filling Coronet City with hacweed, and that either Dogma or Echo’s already started.

Rex, Kix notes, pretends to miss that. “Fox doesn’t live in the city any more.” It is possible the next butterfly bandage is applied with incrementally more force than is needed. It is possible he deserves it.

“Then we’ll flood all of Corelia-”

“ _N_ _one of us_ will consider introducing an invasive weed and risk unbalancing a planet’s ecosystem on the off chance that it will trigger a vod’s allergies.”

“Of course we won’t-”

“And especially not as revenge for said vod daring to fight back when confronted on his own turf.” Kix smiles angelically at the tiny, annoyed glares he gets. “Oh I’m so sorry. Did you want the reasonable response or the supportive one?”

Rex eyes him with some caution. Not nearly enough as he should, but Kix has long resigned himself to being known as soft on certain ones of his idiots. “Are those very different?” Rex wonders mostly to himself.

Kix smiles. Rex twitches, as if tempted to shift away. “Excruciatingly,” the medic drawls.

“Then supportive please.” Always brave, their Rex. Kix slaps the last bandage on with his entire palm.

“There there,” he intones. He gently pats the single not-entirely-bruised spot along Rex’s shoulder blade. “We all have our strengths.”

If Hardcase was here, Kix would at least have gotten a snicker. His wit is wasted on this lot. The cretin he married flings himself bodily across the overstuffed couch, sideways across the arm and nearly dislodging the multicolored blanket tucked over the back. “Remember when he used to be nice to you?” Jesse whispers sotto voce.

Rex checks to make sure Kix was both finished and occupied packing away his kit before answering. “No.”

Jesse huffs. He swings his legs over the couch arm. “Me either.”

Infants. Not for the first time Kix wonders what madness he succumbed to, to willingly inflect these reprobates on himself. He snaps his kit closed. To be honest he hadn’t needed much of it at all: Fox's little beatdown was incredibly, admirably precise. Kix could have scrounged all he used from Rex and Bacara’s fresher. The thought reminds him - he pops his kit back open. He’ll check their stock before he goes, top everything off. They’re both much better at getting themselves into scraps than they are at remembering to restock bacta patches.

All three. Kix doesn’t yet know what it is they’ve decided Kit will be to them but whatever it is, rumor has it he’s just as reckless. Worse, if Monkk is to be believed. Much worse, if the frazzled way Monkk slammed a drink before answering is to be trusted. Kix may leave them this whole kit; he has more.

When he turns Jesse has inched his way into Rex’s space, far more careful of Rex’s bruising than Rex himself is. They huddle like flat-hooved hoskas and grumble like grey-winged gartros and Kix is inexplicably, inescapably fond of them. He shakes his head, nudges his pack under the dangling edge of the couch blanket where Bacara won’t find it until long after he’s left and it’s far too late to protest.

“He’ll turn my kid into a degenerate,” one of the degenerates in Kix’s own unfortunate purview grouses, and the other nods seriously as though Torrent children, from the very first of them, aren’t deeply trained in the arts of graft and mayhem. Kix scratches at the blond hair just growing out of a low buzz. Rex leans into his touch, but doesn’t bother searching for sympathy where he will find none. “His first word was a swear and now his first sentence is too.”

“Impressive cognitive development at his age,” Kix needles. “You can tell he wasn’t just parroting. He understood context and everything.”

Jesse and Rex simultaneously make the most amusing soundscape of pissy noises. Kix reaches over to scratch at the base of Jesse’s neck and the Scout simultaneously reaches to let him and pretends to ignore him completely.

“If anyone is going to teach any of your kids to be a scoundrel it’s going to be me,” he complains. “At least you know they’ll have boundaries.”

“Am I ‘boundaries’ now?” Kix deadpans. They both comfortably ignore him but for the patting.

“I can’t be upstaged Rex. Tell me you have a plan.”

“ _Of course_ I have a plan _-_ ”

There’ll be no stopping them, Kix thinks and sighs. The choice is his: stay and mitigate the fallout, or leave for more stable company.

Rex’s comm chimes Domino’s alert. Jesse fishes his own out from under his rear and hammers in a flurry of text. He stops to correct spelling before sending, so it's to Dogma likely. Kix does not have enough patience for this impending level of idiocy. His decision is very firmly made.

Bacara might not appreciate Kix’s fumbling help fixing their under-floor heating, but knowing what he does of Torrent he won’t begrudge it.

* * *

“What am I looking at?”

“It is possible,” Rex deflects badly, “that events did not entirely lead to the optimal outcome.”

Kix hums that hum that all Torrent medics use, the one that says they’re entirely aware of your banthashit but refuse to sink to your level and call you on it. Rex twitches and Kix flicks his ear. He starts his scan over. “Plan didn’t hold up then?” Rex’s subvocal, chesty growl reminds Kix of nothing so much as the bucketful of lothkittens Hez once managed to sneak aboard. He pats at blond hair just starting to roll into fuzzy little curls. Rex clicks his teeth in mostly feigned irritation but can neither lean into the touch or bat Kix’s hand away while the scanner is going.

“The _Plan_ ,” Rex bites haughtily, or as haughtily as he can while holding painfully, rigidly still, “was perfectly fine.”

“But imperfectly implemented.”

Even as he says it, he knows it’s false. Rex’s plans don’t _always_ work but he’s never failed to learn, to adapt. The Rex Kix has known for nearly the entirety of the war would have figured out, long before three increasingly painful attempts, that trying to take Fox in a direct fight won’t go well for him.

Rex twitches in outrage. Kix flicks his ear. He restarts the scan.

One day, likely not one day soon but one day eventually, Kix will have to tell Torrent vode that scanner technology has improved. So much faster these days, and much more forgiving of unexpected motion.

“It is possible that I have misjudged some factors.”

“Most of them, it seems.”

Rex twitches. Kix flicks his ear.

One day, he’ll tell them. Definitely not one day soon, but one day.

Kix finally flips off the scanner. “No internal bleeding, no serious torso trauma at all, despite appearances. A very neat spanking, as usual. Please give Fox my compliments the next time you decide to attack his fist with your ribs. Now what am I looking at.”

It is with entirely too dramatic reluctance that Rex pries the holopad from his own fingers and with entirely too theatrical nonchalance does he inch it over. On one hand, Kix is as always pleased he gets to see this unrepentantly playful side of the man who’s become one of his … whatever they are. ‘Best friends’ doesn’t seem to hold the right amount of weight.

On the other, he’s eternally grateful Alpha-17 told him about the ear-flick.

Kix rolls his eyes, flicks Rex’s ear, accepts the ‘pad. And laughs.

It isn’t a polite snicker, it’s a cackle punched right out of his gut in surprise. “What is this?” Kix wheezes. He drops so heavily into the couch the front door flung wide to catch early spring breeze rattles against its hinges. “What is _this_?”

Rex, the unmitigated asshole, affects an innocence that can’t quite hide his grin.

“It looks like paperwork to me, Kix. Surely Jesse hasn’t been _that_ bad for you.”

‘Performance Improvement Plan’, the document proclaims in a bold black header. ‘I’m supposed to start these things with a list of what you did well but kark you. You already got a head big enough they make your bucket custom. Pay attention and you might be less shit eventually,’ it continues, pointed red font scrawled haphazardly across the top and down the margins. Kix scrolls.

“Your pathetic defense makes him physically nauseous?”

“It is possible that Fox has been harboring certain opinions about our fights.”

“‘Tussle’, it says here. ‘Scuffle’ too. Never ‘fight’. Oh,” Kix grins. “Or ‘play-wrestling a karking nexu kit still a tenday out from its kriffing milkteeth’.”

“Like I said. Opinions.”

“Clearly.” Pages and pages of opinions in Fox’s characteristically colorful scathing. Kix knows Rex holds his own in fights, knows Fox’s wins didn’t come nearly as easily as he writes they do. And yet this document reads like a long-suffering ori’vod lecturing the ad gnawing snarlingly at his knee. “Surprised you didn’t space this at the first jump.”

Rex settles in warm against Kix’s side and hooks his chin over a shoulder. The bruise on his cheekbone slowly curdles to yellow-green under the bacta. “He made one or two valid points,” he understates mildly. Kix knocks a temple against his; Rex’s chuckle shakes through them both. “Know your enemy, but before that know yourself, right?”

“That is the most mature thing I’ve heard from you all cycle.”

“And kicking his shebs will be exponentially sweeter if I use his recommendations to do it.”

“I take that back.”

* * *

“Well,” Kix drawls, and he’s not ashamed to admit that his surprise is obvious. “I suppose if you slam your head against a wall repeatedly, eventually _something_ has to give.”

Rex rolls him the single dirtiest look in modern galactic history. _This_ should be interesting. Kix retrieves Leia before she makes good on her attempt to dive from Rex’s arm. Rex takes advantage of the space to flip Luke back right-side and refasten his pants before he gets all the way out of them. Somewhere in that flail, Luke catches a fistful of blond hair just long enough to tug.

Rex winces. Kix makes a note to corner him for a trim, he’s starting to look shaggy again and he’ll pick and pick and pick at his hair in annoyance but will promptly forget to ask for a haircut.

“Are congratulations in order?” Kix wonders. Rex snaps his armful of ad into a series of clasps and buttons far more complicated than Kix has ever seen on children’s clothing.

“Ughhhhhhhh,” whines Luke. Leia’s haughty, superior snicker will be a thing of beauty once she has the technique down.

“I have no idea what you could be talking about.”

“Hm,” Kix hms. Rex flicks him a glare. Leia snickers. Luke hangs limply, defeated and morose, dangled over Rex’s elbow. “Can I assume,” Kix says and enunciates every word, “that you finally managed to damage Fox’s knuckles?”

Or not, it seems, from Rex’s deepening glare. “He forfeited,” he snaps, all disappointed indignant.

That is. It’s _brilliant_.

Rex had been very prepared for this fight. He looks forward to them even though Kix wouldn’t bother to say that out loud, and certainly not where Jesse could hear. A forfeit after what, eight attempts Rex has made to steal Luke away? And after Guard managed to snag Leia too in the last clash? That would have been well-timed for viciousness. Fox is, as ever, impressively brutal.

There isn’t that much hair, technically speaking, on a miniature human. Somehow Leia seems to have time and a half the normal amount, and every strand seems to have independent ideas of what her hairstyle should be. Kix unwinds a strand from Leia’s fist, tugs it out of her mouth and stuffs the ends of it under one colorful hair elastic. Hopefully it stays up longer than Luke will stay dressed. The clasps on the kid’s clothes are already beginning to unravel.

This is Kit Fisto’s fault, somehow. The wild, willful hair and the religious objection to pants both.

Rex grunts wordless surprise at Luke’s sudden lunge but he prevails: the second attempt to divest is summarily foiled and Luke is buttoned and (are those zipties???) strapped firmly into his pants. There is no being on Concord Dawn with more pained wounded-tooka-eyes than a Luke forced to remain dressed.

He glistens in abject misery around at his audience but finds no allies. He pouts gloriously. It’s almost an exact copy of Rex’s. Kix turns to squash a snicker in Leia’s hair and finds her grinning too. Their eyes meet; the giggles that erupt are entirely inevitable.

“You are not helping,” Rex grumbles. Kix doesn’t deny it.

“If you wanted help -”

“ _I_ want the song,” Luke interrupts loudly. He drums his heels against Rex’s chest.

Leia snatches a sudden hold of the front of Kix’s jacket and yanks so hard he nearly topples forward.

Honestly, Guard is trying to raise these children as wildlings!

“Leia, not so hard,” Kix scolds. Across the room Rex hms with Kix’s own pointed hum.

“‘You want’ it, do you?” he says mild as bluemilk.

Luke heaves a beautiful sigh, one that knocks him right over back to hang like put-upon longberries over Rex’s arm. “Ba’Rex Can I _Please_ Have The Song,” he intones.

Kix barely gets one of Leia’s hands untangled from his collar before her other is tugging rapid and desperate at his shirt. “Ba’Kix,” she hisses, “we gotta go.”

Both of Rex’s littlest are strong in the Force. Luke’s strength has manifested in showy ways, in things shifting around him, doors opening, snacks falling from high shelves. Leia’s strength is quieter, that knowing-before-knowing, that feeling-without-feeling. That finely-tuned sense for oncoming disaster.

Sense for disaster and, frankly surprisingly considering her primary progenitors, the actual _common_ sense to try to avoid it.

Kix hefts her up into a firmer hold.

“Thank you for asking politely,” Rex is saying as he shifts Luke to a one-armed-hug and pats his free hand around the couch. “Yes you can. Which one is the song?”

“The blue one with the chomper.”

There’s a bag and it’s brimming with toys and ‘pads and such, and Kix is not so fond of Rex that he won’t abandon him the moment he’s distracted digging through it.

“Ba’Kix-”

“We’re going,” he murmurs, just for her ears. She leans in, quiet herself.

“Go _faster_.”

“This one?” Rex asks and Kix doesn’t wait around to hear Luke’s confirmation.

“Ba’Kix gooooo.” Rex turns to plop Luke down in the sun-soaked corner of his couch. As soon as he sees his back, Kix goes.

A brisk walk at first, balls of his feet. Their stone floors don’t creak with steps the way wood does and Kix makes it all the way out the doors and into the warm, late summer sunset without Rex looking up.

“What’s the song?”

He hefts and Leia bounces perfectly with the motion to land in a seat around his neck.

“It’s from Ba’Neyo. It doesn’t stop singing _ever_.”

Leia grabs a hug around the top of Kix’s head. Kix breaks into a perfectly dignified jog. The first cheerful strains of ‘Baby Aiwha doo doo doodoo doodoo’ chase them down the beach.

Lose the battle, Kix thinks, but win the war. Once again, Fox emerges victorious.

**Author's Note:**

> I forget who noted that 'Baby Shark' was missing from Gree's serenade. Hopefully this makes up for it.


End file.
